Here Milly elevated her eyebrows a little, while Hugh went on: “And I don’t want you to go to that fine place and learn to despise us all, and the old home by the brook.”
“I shall never do that, for I love father and mother and Tom and Bessie and Charlie better than I do myself. I’d die for them, but I do hate the old house and the poverty and work, and I mean to be a grand lady and rich, and then I’ll help them all, and you, too, if you’ll let me.”
“I don’t need your help, and I don’t want to see you a grand lady, and I don’t want you to be snubbed by that proud Thornton,” Hugh replied, and Milly answered quickly, with short, emphatic nods of her head:
“I sha’n’t be snubbed by him, for if he sasses me I shall sass him. I’ve made up my mind to that.”
“And when you do may I be there to hear; but you are a brick, any way,” was Hugh’s laughing rejoinder, and as Milly had risen to her feet, he, too, arose, and taking up the satchel walked with her to the Park gate, where he said good-bye, but called to her after a minute, “I say, Milly, I have that pea-pod yet, and you are beginning to wilt, but I am as plump as ever.”
“Pshaw!” was Mildred’s scornful reply, as she hurried on through the Park, while Hugh walked slowly down the road, wishing he had money and could give it all to Milly.
“But I shall never be rich,” he said to himself, “even if I’m a lawyer as I mean to be, for only dishonest lawyers make money, they say, and I sha’n’t be a cheat if I never make a cent.”
Meanwhile Milly had reached the house, which had always impressed her with a good deal of awe, it was so stately and grand. Going up to the front door she was about to ring, when the same voice which had ordered her from the berry pasture, said to her rather sharply:
“What are you doing here, little girl?”
“I’m Mildred Leach, and I’ve come to be Allie’s little friend,” Mildred answered, facing the speaker squarely, with her satchel in both hands.